Now and then, as the night hours passed, though within all was bright and busy as day, Ella would give a glance at the woman working the crane opposite hers, a thin-faced, dark-haired young woman, who was none other than the mysterious friend of the man Cole, and whom she held in great suspicion.
While Ella worked within the factory in order to keep a watchful eye, Seymour Kennedy watched with equal shrewdness outside.
The days went past, but nothing suspicious occurred until one night Cole, who was again living at the temperance hotel, joined the munition-workers’ train, being followed by Ella, who found that he had been engaged as an electrician in the power-house.
Next day he met the thin-faced young woman, who was known to her fellow-workers as Kate Dexter, and they spent several hours together, at lunch and afterwards at a picture-house. But, friends as they were, when they left the Central Station they took care never to travel in the same carriage. So, to their fellow-workers, they were strangers.
One afternoon, at half-past two, Kennedy, who was at the Central Hotel, called at Ella’s lodgings and explained how he had seen her father walking in the street with Cole.
“I afterwards followed them,” he added, “and eventually found that your father is at the Grand Hotel.”
“Then mischief is certainly intended,” declared the girl, her cheeks turning pale.
“No doubt. They mean to execute the plot without any further delay. That’s my opinion. It will require all our watchfulness and resource if we are to be successful.”
“Why not warn the police?” suggested the girl.
“And, by doing so, you would most certainly send your father to a long term of penal servitude,” was her lover’s reply. “No. We must prevent it, and for your own sake allow your father a loophole for escape, though he certainly deserves none.”